A delegation of the Dutch embassy, including Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Paul Menkveld, witnessed the signing of an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) between vice president Prof. Qikun Xue of Tsinghua University and SRON (Netherlands Institute for Space Research) managing director Dr. Remco den Besten. The signing was also witnessed by a delegation from NWO, led by member of the executive board Professor Wim van den Doel, as well as their Chinese counterpart, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

Missing Matter

Tsinghua and SRON will work together with a view to a future Chinese space telescope for studying ‘missing matter’, suspected thin gas in the universe with a temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees. The two renowned institutes will study if detectors that are developed in Europe for a project of the European Space Agency ESA, is suitable for measuring radiation from such hot plasma. In scientific discussions around the signing, already more areas for possible cooperation were identified.

Cooperation

This signing fits in a trend of increased space sciences cooperation between China and the Netherlands. Only three weeks ago, Delft University of Technology signed an MoU with the biggest space sciences university in China, Harbin Institute of Technology, on establishing an International Institute of Space.